Speech information is not only conveyed by word patterns, but also by additional parameters which include the average and peak sound levels (volume), intonation and audio frequency (pitch) distribution which the speaker uses, for example, to convey feeling, emotion, urgency, disbelief and the like. The speaker applies and modulates these additional parameters based in part on past experience combined with information that is fed back to him from the listener""s acoustic environment. The intelligibility of spoken information can thus be reduced under circumstances that impair the speaker""s ability to hear and interpret these additional parameters in his own speech, to compare these parameters which background sound information in the listener""s acoustic environment and to similar parameters in any reply which he receives from the listener.
A speaker""s ability to hear and interpret additional speech parameters may arise as a result of disease or congenital defect which compromises the physically or neurologically challenged to sense and understand auditory information, from background sounds in either the speaker""s or listener""s acoustic environment which mask or otherwise disguise the sensed information or as a result of limitations or artifacts in a telephone or other communications channel which link a speaker with a remote listener. As used herein, the term xe2x80x9cimpaired hearingxe2x80x9d can refer to any or all of these circumstances.
The invention provides a speaker with a real time visual display which enables him to compare values of parameters in his own speech with measured values of acoustic information in the listener""s environment (including, without limitation, the parameters of any reply received from the listener) The speaker is thus able to use the displayed information as feedback to adjust and modulate his own speech patterns to increase the listener""s understanding.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the visual display is presented to the speaker via a special set of eyeglasses. The displayed information may be superimposed as a heads-up display on a partially reflecting lens of the eyeglasses or may be contained in the eyeglass frames and appear at an edge or corner of the eyeglass lens.